Conventional solutions to the alignment of an optical fiber or fiber array involve actively aligning the optical fiber, and then epoxying, laser welding or soldering the optical fiber in place. Some alternative solutions use v-grooves to passively align an optical fiber to a PIC device, but the v-grooves form part of the PIC device, and do not include any hermetic seal for a laser device, or hard stop alignment features for the optical fibers.
An object of the present invention is to overcome the shortcomings of the prior art by providing a passive alignment device for photonic integrated circuits that decouples the optical fiber alignment features from the PIC.